


The Blind Prophet

by emmaharvelle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Season/Series 09, holy terror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 10:50:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaharvelle/pseuds/emmaharvelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin Tran didn’t lose his life, but his sight. Eyeless, sightless, and unable to read the Angel Tablet, he isn’t sure he still qualifies as a prophet. Dean, on the other hand, can’t stop thinking about all the people he’s on the verge of losing, and blames himself. Set right after Holy Terror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blind Prophet

Coffee spread in a pool over the tabletop, seeping towards the edge. Dean caught the edge of the puddle with a paper towel and mopped it up quickly, scraping the bits of broken cup into the trash can. “Look, Kevin, it’s no big deal. It’s perfectly normal.”

The prophet turned towards Dean, his face angry and closed. Where his big, brown eyes should have been, instead there were bone-white bandages. Dean flinched, his face contorting into a grimace at the sight. This was his fault. Kevin had nearly died because of him. Sam – well, he might be dead too, or as good as dead. And it was all Dean’s fault.

It had been four days since Gadriel smote Kevin and kidnapped Sam (that was the only way Dean could think of it; kidnapped). The two days after had been spent in the hospital, begging for Kevin’s survival and shaking from fear and guilt. There had been over a dozen calls to Cas, partly to ensure the newly-restored angel was still alive, and partly to ask the monumental favor of tracking Sam down and rescuing him from his holy prison. God, Dean wanted to be chasing after Sam; he could hardly sit still waiting for word from Cas and wishing he was on the road, doing something. But Kevin had to take priority.

Both days prior to today had been a lame attempt at returning to normal life – if, for hunters, such a thing existed. Kevin was learning his way through the bunker by touch, albeit not fast or well enough. He had knocked into every table and chair at least twice, and today’s shattered coffee mug had a long line of predecessors. Dean was doing his best to help the kid cope, he really was, but he couldn’t even look at the fumbling, clumsy way Kevin walked, always searching for obstacles with his fingertips as his missing eyes vainly scanned the room – Dean couldn’t watch the pitiful display without feeling the weight of his guilt pressing down on his chest.

Even after Kevin had pulled through surgery and Dean had dodged a hundred questions from well-meaning doctors, the weight hadn’t lifted from Dean’s shoulders. As much as he wanted to be looking for Sam, he owed Kevin. He’d asked Kevin to trust him, and the boy had, unwaveringly. And this was what it got them.

“Kevin, seriously, don’t worry about it. Mugs cost like five bucks at Walmart,” Dean offered, trying – and failing – to make light of the situation. The prophet stared blankly back.

“It’s a huge deal! I’m blind! I keep bumping into things, nearly falling down the stairs, breaking stuff – I’m no good as a fighter anymore, Dean. And I can’t do anything with the Angel Tablet because, oh, yeah, I can’t see.” The words scorched at the corners. Kevin’s muscles tensed.

The worst part was, he knew Dean was blaming himself. And Sam would be too, once they fixed him. The two probably wouldn’t talk for weeks, wouldn’t be able to look at each other. Dean desperately needed somebody to still be there, and Kevin knew it. But he didn’t care. He’d had enough of Dean’s speeches about family and protecting each other. He’d lost everything.

He’d lost his future, his girlfriend, his mom, his finger, now his eyes – and with them, the only important thing about him. He was useless, and said so. “Face it, Dean, I’m just dead weight like this. I can’t hunt. I can’t research. I can’t translate the tablet. I’m just about the shittiest prophet you could get. You’d be better of just killing me and finding the next holy shit to crop up.”

The defeated prophet dropped his head onto his chest, pulling himself out of his chair and feeling blindly for the wall. His fingertips traced along it as he found his way by touch into the hallway leading towards his bedroom. Dean stayed where he was, too shocked by the comment at first even to move.

He remembered the first minutes after Gadriel had fled, when Kevin had lain on the floor like a broken puppet. Tendrils of smoke had risen from the prophet’s eyes; even now Dean could see the flash of fatal, heavenly light that had burned away those brown orbs. He’d been sure Kevin was dead. No one could survive being smote by an angel.

That had always been the belief, before. Maybe Gadriel had been injured in the fall, perhaps he hadn’t meant to kill Kevin but only to take away his power – whatever the reason, the angel had failed to kill Kevin Tran.

For the minutes Dean had believed his friend – practically his little brother, really – to be dead and all the minutes afterward, waiting for Kevin’s coma to break, waiting for news from the doctors, waiting and waiting for the inevitable complications to arise, Dean had been a train wreck. He’d barely been able to keep it together for five minutes as the combined weight of Kevin’s injuries, Sam’s possession and disappearance, Gadriel’s betrayal, Cas’ absence, and his own failures had settled on him.

It had been worse than hauling Sam out of that church while the angels fell, worse than watching Sam wrangle Lucifer and jump into the pit, worse than clawing his way out of Purgatory without Cas. Prophet of the Lord or not, he was responsible for dragging Kevin into this life; an innocent kid, arguably one of the strongest Dean had ever met. The boy had saved the world, for fuck’s sake. And Sam, his baby brother, whom Dean was supposed to protect, was out there possessed by an angel Dean had let in. Everything had gone to shit, but Dean wasn’t finished yet. He wasn’t losing anyone else.

“Kevin! Hey, Kevin!” he called, letting himself into the kid’s room. Kevin sat on the bed, facing the door, tracing his thumbs over the mattress. “I’m sorry, Kevin. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. You’re family, and family don’t end in blood,” Dean started, fighting to keep his voice level. “Goddammit, Kevin, you didn’t fucking deserve this. And I promise you I will personally carve out Metatron’s eyeballs before I kill him, but you are going to be around when it happens. You’re not useless. You’re Kevin Tran, Advanced Placement!” Dean was grasping at straws, and he knew it, but he thought he saw the ghost of a smirk pull at Kevin’s lips.

“You may be a prophet, but you’re a Winchester first. I meant what I said, about dying for you. Me and Sam, we don’t abandon family, and we aren’t gonna abandon you, so you better not give up on me now, because we got a hell of a lot of shit to do.”

Dean fell silent. The two waited in silence for the other to speak, until, at last, Kevin rasped, “Let’s do it.”

They spent the rest of the night plodding through the Men of Letters’ books; Dean reading a passage out loud and Kevin theorizing. A hunter and a prophet in a secret lair, plotting to save the world.

…………….

Three states over, in a ramshackle house on a pot-holed road, the eldest of six children found herself laying haphazardly on the floor. She brushed the dirt from her worn jeans and pushed her hair behind her ears, while her eyes danced with ancient languages and symbols with one simple instruction: find the tablet. A new Prophet had awoken.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick ficlet I wrote while sobbing my eyes out after the mid-season finale. Thanks for reading!


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